Inkjet printing is more and more favored by users due to the advantage of colorful printing. In order to guarantee the printing effect, higher requirement is put forward on an ink cartridge for supplying ink to a printer, and particularly relevant parameters of the ink cartridge, for instance, the ink type, the ink level, the manufacturer of the ink cartridge and other information, must be researched. The research of the relevant parameters of the ink cartridge seems very important.
In the prior art, the commonly used ink cartridge information detection mode is to dispose an integrated circuit and a piezoelectric sensor, an optical prism or the like on an ink cartridge and preset information such as the manufacturer of the ink cartridge, the ink color, the ink composition, the ink level and the production date of ink in the integrated circuit; and when the ink cartridge is installed to the printer, the printer can continue printing only when the information in the ink cartridge is in full compliance with required information on the printer. Although the mode can accurately detect the parameter information of the ink cartridge, the cost of the integrated circuit is very high. Moreover, once the ink cartridge is used, internal parameters of the ink cartridge can be modified and cannot be reused again. Therefore, the printing cost can be increased and electronic waste can be produced.
For instance, the Chinese patent Publication No. CN102001229 provides an ink cartridge, which comprises: a first signal blocking portion, a second signal blocking portion and a third signal blocking portion, wherein the first signal blocking portion is configured to prevent a first signal from running through the first signal blocking portion or change a path of the first signal when the first signal blocking portion receives the first signal; the second signal blocking portion is configured to prevent a second signal from running through the second signal blocking portion or change a path of the second signal when the second signal blocking portion receives the second signal; the third signal blocking portion is configured to prevent a third signal from running through the third signal blocking portion or change a path of the third signal when the third signal blocking portion receives the third signal; and a printer prompts correct ink cartridge installation only when light complies with the predetermined blocking sequence.
Moreover, the patent Application No. 2009100015237 discloses a liquid container capable of being detachably mounted to a recording apparatus. The recording apparatus includes: a plurality of liquid container mounting portions, a plurality of apparatus electrical contacts, a transmitter for transmitting signal through a shared wire, a photoreceptor and a discriminator for determining the matching correctness when the mounting portion of the liquid container is mounted. The liquid container comprises: a plurality of container electrical contacts electrically connected with the apparatus electrical contacts, a liquid accommodating portion for accommodating liquid, an information storage portion for storing determination information, a light-emitting portion for emitting light to the photoreceptor, and a controller for controlling the light-emitting portion to emit light to the discriminator according to information supplied by the transmitter and the determination information, so as to determine the matching correctness.
However, the ink cartridge also has a problem. As the controller is configured to control the light-emitting portion to emit light to the discriminator according to the information supplied by the transmitter and the determination information and is controlled by the printer, the installation of the ink cartridge must undergo strict actual inspection of a printer installation program; due to different installation proficiencies of users, different users have different installation speeds in the installation process; and once the users install the ink cartridge too fast and the printer has no enough time to respond to the on-off state of the above optical signals, particularly when the second signal blocking portion and the third signal blocking portion do not block the optical signals, if the printer cannot identify the information, the case that a correct ink cartridge cannot be identified by the printer can be caused.
In addition, the ink cartridge also has a problem. A remaining ink amount detection unit in the ink cartridge prompts via a buoy disposed in an ink reservoir. When the buoy moves up and down along with the movement of an ink surface, the buoy may be affected by bubbles on the ink surface, and hence the sensitivity of the vertical movement is insufficient, and consequently the detection result can be affected.